


Vision

by ladyofreylo



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Happily Ever After, Love Story, Prose Poem, Reylo - Freeform, Romance, Soulmates, Star Wars - Freeform, no fluff sorry, no smut sorry, rey loves ben, soulmark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:34:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23866882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyofreylo/pseuds/ladyofreylo
Summary: Rey's soulmark arises on her wrist when she meets writer-in-residence Ben Solo.  She doesn't like him--he is dark and sad.  No humor and fluff this time.9 Squares prompt words were vision, wait, survival, anger, and winter.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo
Comments: 16
Kudos: 61
Collections: 9 Squares Reylo Challenge, REYLO WEEK 2020





	1. Vision

There was no escaping the destiny of the mark. Even if they hated each other, even if it was a loveless relationship, even if they never met again, he would be hers and she his. 

Rey would never have another lover, never be wed to another, never be in love again. She could choose to live with him or without him, but that was it. Her vision of what her life would be like changed in an instant, when she met Ben Solo.

“I don’t like him,” Rey said, helplessly staring at Rose in the mirror of the ladies room. “He’s too sad.”

Rey had run into the bathroom after a formal introduction to writer Ben Solo, who had started working in the English Department. Rose had already met him at the faulty mixer the night before. Both Rey and Rose had been on the committee to bring him to the University. His writing was dark, full of hard imagery and despondent prose. Stories of loss and wrecked families, death, destruction. Not at all what Rey wanted to read. It was good writing, to be fully fair. Just depressing.

“Ben Solo has a reason to be sad,” Rose said. “He lost his family.”

“I don’t know what to do, then,” Rey said. Her vision blurred. It could not be true.

Her soulmark had popped out the minute she met him.

She felt it itch on her wrist at first, when Ben Solo walked into the first formal department meeting. She thought she was allergic to something.

She had scratched her wrist, idly, not looking at it, waiting for the sensation to stop or dull, as any itch does after a moment. Even as she sat through the introduction of this new writer-in-residence, this stone-faced man, she felt the welts raise up further. The mark bit into her skin until she realized what was itching her.

She felt sick and didn’t dare look. His name would be on her wrist. Ben Solo.

She had to shake his hand and the mark burned her, the itch turning to sharp pain as the mark blossomed further.

Ben must have felt it, too. His eyes widened as they touched hands.

His suit coat covered his wrist, but hers was bare. He turned her arm sideways to see the mark, angry red script, carved into her skin.

It still itched. Rey dropped Ben’s hand to rub it. He started to speak, but Rey mumbled an excuse me and ran.

Rey cornered her friend Rose in the bathroom and showed her the mark.

“He is not my type,” Rey said, holding her wrist. “He has no expression whatsoever on his face. What do I do? I can’t be this man’s mate.” 

Rose gave Rey a sorrowful look.

No matter what, Rey was Ben’s mate and she would be his forever.


	2. Wait

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I just added something to the first sad little story. The next moment.

Feeling sick, Rey slunk back to the meeting to grab her work bag. She stuck her laptop in it and excused herself. She couldn’t look at Ben.

“Wait,” Ben called.

She didn’t wait. She couldn’t. Her destiny as his soulmate would not allow her to wait on him. She wanted nothing to do with him.

“Sorry, late,” she tossed over her shoulder as she ran from him.

Ben had long legs, though, and he caught up with her. Grabbed her arm, pulled her up short.

Her bag fell off her shoulder and hit the floor. Ben leaned down to help Rey pick it up.

“Leave it, please,” she said, as she could not bear to have him so close.

He smelled like spice and soap.

“I feel it, too,” he said, looking at her. “My wrist burns.”

He pulled up the sleeve of his suit coat and showed her the welts. “It’s you, right? It hurt worse when I touched you. You’re Rey.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “But I don’t want to be. I don’t want to be tied to you.” She turned and walked away.

“Wait, wait,” Ben said. “I don’t even know you.” He jogged to keep up with Rey. “Why don’t you want me? I don’t understand.”

Rey stopped in front of her office door. “Look, it’s nothing personal. Well, it is something personal. I don’t want to be tied down. I want to choose my own person, but I can’t. Now I am bonded. To you. I waited so long, I thought it wouldn’t happen.”

“It happens to us all, Rey,” Ben said. “It just does. We have no control. We just have to wait and see what happens.”

“I don’t like you,” Rey said, wildly. She unlocked her office door and stepped inside. “I don’t know what to do.”

Ben stood outside with no expression. “You won’t try, then? You would rather…”

“Wait for an eternity.” She shut the door in his face.


	3. Survival

When Rey got home, she found a solemn Ben Solo on her steps. Her little house sat, looking cozy, with an improbably large man with long, long legs stretched out, elbows leaning, resting on her porch. He stood when she got out of her car and walked up. How he found her, she didn’t know. She didn’t want to know.

“It’s survival,” he said. “It’s not optional.”

“So, you want this?” Rey asked. “Us?”

“We are a dyad. We cannot survive alone. Only together,” he said. “Can we try?”

Rey blew out a breath. “All right, come in,” she said. “You may as well.”

She didn’t like the idea, but there he was. Maybe they should speak to one another.

Inside, Ben took up more than his fair share of space in Rey’s tiny house. Rey offered him a seat on her sectional, and he sank into it. His presence set Rey’s soulmark to itching again, still a small burn against her skin. She scratched.

Ben saw her dig her nails into her wrist. He held out a hand.

“I will help you,” he said. “If we touch, it will stop.”

Rey hesitated. She did not care to touch him just yet. “Why are you so sad all the time? Your writing, your face, your voice. Everything is sorrowful and weary. Miserable, depressing. I can’t be like that.”

Ben lowered his hand. “I’m sorry. My life has been hard sometimes, and I am not given to easy laughter or conversation. The sorrow wells up in me and spills out everywhere. It’s why I write.” He gazed at the floor for a moment. Then looked up at Rey. “I can’t help being sad.”

“From what?”

“I am the child of absent parents. My uncle thought I was a bad seed and turned them against me. I spent a lot of time alone, listening to nothing but my own dark thoughts. It is a hard habit to break.”

“But you must break it, Ben,” Rey said, urgently. She didn’t know exactly why it was so important. But it was.

“I can break it if you will let me in,” Ben said. “Then we will both survive.”

Rey shook her head. “I don’t know, Ben. I want to thrive. I want to be happy. I can’t tie myself to a despondent man.”

“I am dark. I am not a light person, but I am yours, my Rey. Please touch me,” he said.

Rey wondered if his survival depended on her touch. She wondered if hers depended on him.

Rey stretched out her hand. Ben’s hand met hers between them. They touched palms and the marks burned again. Rey cried out and reflexively clasped Ben’s hand in hers. He tugged her down to sit with him, to hold her tightly in his arms, to bury his face in her soft hair.

The burning and itching subsided.

Bonded.


	4. Anger

Rey stared at Ben, her anger slowly drifting on a sea of other emotion. Ben’s eyes looked like the whiskey Rey’s foster father drank every day to forget himself.

She touched Ben’s face sadly. Drained of that righteous anger, she had no mooring, no purpose.

Ben kissed Rey’s hand once, then again, and suddenly again. He kissed her wrist, opening his mouth to taste her soulmark. It thrummed under his tongue.

Rey drew a breath in.

She lifted Ben’s wrist to her own mouth and licked, a small taste of his mark. He closed his eyes.

“I should hate you. I should be in a rage,” Rey whispered. “I am frightened you will bring that despondent energy to my doorstep and leave it here.”

Ben nodded. “I should be in a rage. I do not want to let go of an anger that propels me forward, that helps me write my soul. I despise those who say my darkness is not justified. It is. It is me. They made me this way. Full of angry, bitter stories.”

Rey stared at Ben’s soft lips, so full and rich. He gazed into her eyes.

“I would kiss the darkness,” Rey said, softly. “If you would kiss the light.”

He nodded once and their lips met. She felt his lips open against hers. His tongue slowly filled her mouth and he tasted of dark things, like the deep woods on a hot day, like chocolate, and black night skies.

Rey lay with Ben to explore the sadness inside him that worked its way out of his pores. Yet, he felt warm to her, pliable to her touch, not brittle, not hard, not mean. Sweet sadness, the kind that made her cry a little. But he wiped her tears with his thumb and licked them.

“I will take your sadness, my love,” he whispered as he joined them together. “I will always be here for you. You bring me light and joy. I bring you a place to hide when you cannot stand life any longer.”

“Just us two?”

“Yes,” he breathed in her ear. “Just us two.”

She wrapped him in her arms.

Later, as she lay with Ben, anger welled up in Rey. This man, this Ben Solo, was a precious gift to her. How could someone hate a child? How could someone leave a child to find his own way? She would never understand the anger that drove his family to abandon him, her dark, sad one.

She could not, would not, do it. Ever.

The bond strengthened.


	5. Winter

In the white winter, they walked, slipping down sidewalks, looking at trees festooned with snow. A tree branch dropped a small shower when the wind blew. Rey, Ben, and little Ani held hands and watched fat flakes sprinkle the streets afresh.

Here in this winter landscape, two soulmates, a strong dyad with one small addition, found light and dark, sadness and vast happiness, together.

Summer was Rey’s time, full of laughter and play. Ben smiled at her exuberance, and Ani giggled and ran wild. It was a time of unrivaled, raucous joy.

Winter, yes, that was Ben’s season. The world lay in darkness with bright spurts of light bouncing off the snow when it came. Thick ice reflected the wan sun. Ani was sad sometimes when the plants withered and birds flew south, but Ben showed him how light shifted to a diffuse wash over every aspect of the landscape—blackened trees, sidewalks, grass, bushes, and cozy houses. How snow muffled usual noises to a peaceful quiet when Ben, Rey, and Ani walked to school. How ice talked along the river, crackling to let water run through. How the sadness of death never lingered. Indeed, it was not death, Ben said softly. It was life waiting, nestling, sleeping, resting, until it would burst forth again.

As it would, each and every time.


End file.
